It Goes Down Easy
by une fille
Summary: Forwards & backwards, then up & down. And the non-stop spinning. That's what it feels like. That's how they are together. Sequel to Easy Girl
1. Shabop Shalom

**Title**: It Goes Down Easy  
**Rating**: T  
**Summary**: Forwards & backwards, then up & down. And the non-stop spinning. That's what it feels like. That's how they are together.  
**Disclaimer**: I do not own Glee, but if I DID, well, I only have five words for you: Brittney. Finn. Spin-off. Freelance detectives. Get on it, Ryan Murphy.  
**Author notes**: Well, here it is. The sequel to Easy Girl. I've decided to stick with the Puck POV, so let me know where my Puck voice needs work because this is going to be a chaptered fic. I know, kids; I'm scared, too. But we'll get through this together somehow. Title is from the awesome Feist song Brandy Alexander.

**Chapter notes**: The chapter title is from the Devendra Banhart song of the same name. I defy you to listen to it & not have it become your go-to Puck/Rachel song. There's a shout-out to Jackie/Hyde in here somewhere; cookies to whoever finds it.

Also, go send my beta Babs much love, if not for turning my insane rants into an actual story than at least for holding my hand through the editing process and not giving up after my countless MARRY ME FINN HUDSON e-mails. She deserves it! GOLD STAR!

* * *

Shabop Shalom

_Our story begins on a Sunday afternoon  
Just between halfway tree and Spanish town  
Where a young boy  
Not yet the cock o' the walk that he would soon become,  
Was lying on the grass and takin' in the sweet and sensuous scent of hibiscus  
That languidly lilted along the summer breeze_

"Quit it."

But he doesn't, of course. He just keeps elbowing Rachel in her side, taking an obscene amount of pleasure in the way her eye twitches in tandem with his arm.

"Quit. It." Her voice is low, but deadly. Mr. Schue doesn't notice because he is up at the front of the group, going on and on about Nationals which are _months_ away and Puck doesn't care because he has Rachel Berry about to lose her shit right next to him _now_.

"Raaaaaachel," he wheedles, quietly but insistently. "Hey, _Rachel_!"

Her eyes do not stray from Mr. Schue's bouncing (the man is _bouncing_) form and Puck doesn't know when to quit.

"Rachel." _Jab_. "Look at me." _Jab_. _Jab_. "Just _say_ it."

Rachel's whole neck flushes and he knows he's getting to her but it's not enough for him.

He pokes her once more, and then leans down to whisper in her ear. "Just say you agree that that closet is the best closet in the school." He glances at the tiny storage closet to the side of the choir room, barely big enough to hold a couple of old tubas and an average-sized person (two, if one of them is particularly limber.)

Now her whole face is flushing too and Puck's smirking so hard that it's starting to hurt. "I don't know what you're talking about," she mutters.

Oh, what a _liar_.

He quits elbowing her and waits for the look of relief on her face before rapping his knuckles sharply on her bare knee.

"Say it."

He is vaguely aware of Mr. Schuester dismissing the club when Rachel gets up so quickly that he almost falls off his chair in surprise. She whips around to stare him down and starts poking her finger into his shoulder, repeatedly and maniacally. "_OK_, I admit it! I admit it! I admit it! Are you _happy_?" she shrieks.

The rest of the Glee club turns a wary eye at them. It's been a week since Regionals, and a week since his little sister yapped to the whole club about what _they_ mistakenly interpreted to be some sort of relationship. He's going to set that misconception straight one of these days. He'll get right on it.

As it stands, ever since that night the rest of the Gleeks have been handling him and Rachel as though they were made of dynamite.

Except for Quinn, who always sends them these indulgent smiles when she sees them, as though somehow she is the one to be thanked for all of this and she is patiently waiting for them to drop to their knees in gratitude.

And Kurt, who chased them out right after the big reveal and squealed "I knew it, I _knew _it," before running back into the party and making out with Trumpet Kid.

And Finn. Who has tried at least five times since the party to talk to Puck about this, but never gets past "So, you and, um, Rachel are, uh, you _know_..." before scratching the back of his neck and mumbling "This is weird," and stumbling off. Puck chooses to take that as Finn's unique blessing.

Everyone else seems to not really know how to handle them being... you know... _them_. It annoys him sometimes, because he's pretty sure he's the part of the equation that they can't quite figure out.

Then again, he can't really blame them when they have to witness Rachel going full-on mental and trying to stab him with her finger.

"Yeah, I'm happy," he admits quietly. He grabs her finger and yanks her forward. "Now tell me _why_ it's the best closet."

"Noah..." she sighs. She has that look on her face, the one that says plainly _you have the mind of a child, Noah Puckerman_, and he loves that she knows this about him and he hates that he hasn't gotten her to look past it yet. "I know why. You know why. Now let's go."

"Do you _really_ know why I love that closet?"

"I know exactly what you're talking about."

He waits for Mr. Schue to walk right by them, because even though there's nothing he enjoys more than getting a rise out of Rachel, there's still something to be said for freaking out his teacher. "OK. But in case you don't, I'm talking about how you totally went down on me after practice two weeks ago in that very closet."

Even though Rachel launches her schoolbag into his gut, it's totally worth it because Mr. Schuester looks at them in shock and walks straight into the piano bench, toppling over Brad the pianist.

And within half an hour, Puck manages to sweet talk Rachel back into the closet.

-------

It starts one day in Biology class, as he studiously ignores a lecture on amoebas or some shit.

(He's been holding a grudge against Mrs. Dreekle ever since she showed a video on childbirth two weeks ago that caused Quinn to freak out and punch him in the 'nads. Twice.)

So, he tunes out as Finn is being berated for asking _Why do guys have nipples?_ again. (The guy really needs to let that one go.)

He starts to think about what he's going to do this weekend. Puck's never been much of a planner, but during last period on a Friday afternoon, thoughts of _everything else_ he could be doing are the only thing stopping him from jamming a pencil through his forehead.

There are videogames to be played and at least three baggies still left over from his short stint as a baker/drug peddler. Nice. But then his mind automatically goes to Rachel and how she factors into it all. He'll probably end up picking a game that's very plot-oriented, because Rachel sometimes sits on the couch to watch him play and pretends it's a movie. And he's _definitely_ going to try to get her to smoke with him again because the first and only time she did, she spent about an hour saying his name all slow and crazy-like, rubbing her hands up and down his Mohawk before demanding he tape her performing Slave 4 U for her Myspace page.

(After watching the footage the next day, she ordered him to delete it off his hard drive. He didn't, obviously.)

He's mind-numbingly bored so he doesn't feel too pathetic when he follows the Rachel Berry train of thought. And there is _something_ there, niggling at the back of his mind when he thinks about her showing up at his house in a short skirt, always exactly six minutes after his mother has left for work (he's convinced she hides in the bushes and waits but she just blushes and ignores him when he asks) and how she always stops on the way to his room to have "girl-talk" with Debbie and he knows he's thought to himself in the past that he might love her but that was emotional distress and this, this right now is something he can't explain. But it's _something_.

When the period bell rings, the class pours out of the room and Rachel aggressively shoulders her way against the moving tide of bodies to get in and meet him at his desk. She does that sometimes, having committed his schedule to heart. Without him ever actually _showing_ it to her, the little psycho. "So, what did you learn in Biology?"

Puck doesn't bother telling her anything about his revelation because he has a feeling she's already had it figured out and has just been waiting for him to catch up.

"Amoebas," he mumbles before grabbing her waist and hoisting her onto his desk. He leans in for a kiss, but she ducks out of the way.

At first he doesn't understand the weird look on her face, but when he follows her line of sight he sees THE HUMAN DIGESTIVE SYSTEM written across the chalkboard in big, bold letters.

Goddamn it.

-------

"Anyway, I told Kurt that if this boy really likes him it won't matter whether or not he's interested in basketball. You can't just go around changing who you are for some boy who probably won't appreciate it in the end." Rachel's vocal training seems to have some practical benefits because she doesn't lose a bit of steam as she talks on and on while jumping up and down to reach the back of her locker. He'd offer to help but the way she's bopping around is too funny an image to pass up. Plus, she's flashing her pink cotton panties with every hop. "Of course he took it the wrong way so now I'm going to have to bake him some cookies because he hasn't spoken to me since second period. Are you even _listening _to me, Noah?"

"God help me, I am." He finally takes pity on her and grabs the book she needs, swings her locker closed and walks off down the hallway.

She scurries after him and it's not long before she's going at it again. "Well? Don't you think I'm right, Noah?"

"I think you should let Kurt figure his own drama out." He's already spent two hours explaining the game of basketball to the kid. He'll be damned if Rachel fucks that up. "And ease up with the Noah thing at school would you? Most of these people don't even know that's my name. I'm sure they think you're talking to someone who isn't even there." He brings a hand to her shoulder, patting it lightly. "I just don't want them thinking you're even crazier than you are," he explains to her sweetly.

Her scowl doesn't have the usual I Am Berry, Hear Me Roar edge to it, so he knows she's going to let that last one slide. "If you want me to stop calling you Noah, you just have to say so."

That's not at all what he's saying.

"That's not at all what I'm saying."

He slings his arm over her shoulder and they head towards the school exit. "I don't mind you calling me Noah. That's fine. But I like Puck, too. _I_ picked that name out. _I_ got it to stick."

No need to mention who picked the name Noah when he was born.

Rachel reaches up to the hand on her shoulder and holds it, and she giggles when he grimaces at having to stoop lower to accommodate their difference in height.

"I think it's charming that you go by the name Puck. It shows character. Besides, some of the greatest performing artists of all_ time_ have gone by one name. Madonna, Cher, Prince..."

"Thanks Berry. I ask you for one favour and you turn it into the gayest thing imaginable."

"You'll appreciate me when you're famous, _Puck_."

He scoffs loudly as the head out the door. "Please. As if I'll still let you hit this when I'm famous."

-------

It freaks him out a little how well he can read her, because that means _something_ but also because she is insane and therefore his ability to follow her thought processes means he might be insane too. He hopes it isn't genetic or anything.

When Rachel asks him one day if he's ever been tested for STDs, he doesn't get offended. Instead, he accepts her invitation to go get themselves checked out at the free clinic because "in this day and age, Noah, there is no such thing as too safe and we must be responsible for our bodies, especially when one considers a sexual history that is spotty at best, like yours is." Still not offended (but kind of annoyed by the manwhore comment) Puck drives them down to the clinic and doesn't complain once as he feels the damage the hard plastic chairs of the waiting room are doing to his back because he knows this is Rachel's crazy-ass way of saying she is ready to have sex with him_. Finally_.

The first time, she cries and initially he assumes it's from the pain but she's still sniffling long after their done. "That was... nice," she says through a watery smile, wrapped in his old quilt and curled up into a small ball at the foot of his bed. Puck rolls his eyes, dragging her up to his lap before nudging her head onto his chest.

"It gets _better_, Berry." She lifts her head and turns it to stare at him hopefully. "It does?"

"Just consider yourself lucky to have landed such a stud like me." He tugs the quilt open and pulls it around the both of them. "The hard part's over. Get ready to have your world rocked on a consistent basis from now on."

She kisses him and whispers something that he doesn't quite catch before falling asleep on him. Debbie's been trained well-enough to run interference with his mom when she gets home, so he lets himself drift off to sleep.

Except he doesn't get much sleep that night. Rachel wakes him up at least twice (or maybe it was three times, but one of those had to be a dream right?) to practice and she keeps saying "Practice makes perfect" and making these gasps that sound better than anything he's ever heard her sing and in his sleep-addled mind his thoughts are forming too quickly for him to grasp onto anything except _This isn't practice, this is the real thing_.

-------

"Tell me something."

Puck considers lifting his head from Rachel's bed to answer but he honestly can't be bothered. The first time he saw her room, he couldn't wrap his head around why somebody would need so many damn pillows. They were everywhere, just taking up space. But now he knows. After a particularly brutal football practice, he had swept right by her and headed straight for the bed. She had huffed and stormed out (and then back in and out again) and he couldn't have cared less because the pillows were there to take care of him. Fucking _pillows_.

("Just get your own pillows." "Why should I when I have yours?" "Is it weird that I find that statement so romantic?" "Yes.")

And now, even though Puck is getting some much needed face-time with the pillows, Rachel is insisting on ruining their special moment because he feels her staring a hole through the back of his head. He groans as he rolls over.

She's kneeling on the bed, her feet tucked under her butt, and even when she's relaxed she looks ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. "Tell me something," she repeats softly.

He opens his arm wide and she accepts the silent invitation, lowering herself down and cradling herself against his torso. "Do you remember the first time the club performed for the school? Before I had joined?" She murmurs in affirmation, and then waits for him to continue "I was so fucking pissed when I saw Finn up there with you guys. But then you did the Push It routine. And I don't know if it was the kneepads or the pigtails, but even though I was angry, it still managed to get me pretty hard. I had to go home and rub one out, pronto." Half-truth. He went home with that in mind, but he ended up having sex with Quinn instead.

Normally, her reaction can go in one of two ways (pissed or horny) but, being Rachel Berry, she does something completely unexpected: nothing.

"Hmmm," she hums. He waits for her to take her turn, because that's how these things go. One confession for another.

"Finn was my first kiss."

Puck makes sure not to move a muscle in the arm that he has wrapped around her, but he's pretty sure he's just strangled one of his beloved pillows to death with his free hand. This isn't surprising or anything. He's always assumed that their flirtation wasn't as innocent as they led everyone to believe. Hell, everyone's kind of assumed it, Quinn included. He just never really looked for confirmation on the theory.

She tells him the whole story, every ridiculous detail. The fake picnic, the virgin cosmos, the beating hearts... the way Finn ran out and left her there to clean it all up, sobbing.

And even though a part of him is kind of raging at the thought, he chokes back laughter when he hears how it ends. While he'd love nothing than to make a mockery of this memory of hers, he figures he owes Finn for how shit went down with Quinn so he doesn't tell Rachel that Finn probably blew his load over first base.

More than ready to get the image of Rachel kissing Finn out of his head, Puck runs his hand up the inside of her thigh, kissing her neck the whole time. This might be when he likes Rachel best, when she is squirming against the bed, biting her lip with the strain of not saying something she knows will just be desperate and embarrassing. When his hand finally gets to its intended destination, he stops. He holds it there, firm but unmoving and it's not long before her patience wears out and she starts rubbing herself against it. Rachel Berry loves nothing more than working hard towards a goal.

Now that they're actually sleeping together, he can't help comparing her to the others he's been with. Some were better, some worse. He doesn't exactly have an exact ranking system that he can consult for this (although now he has something to do next Biology class). But what Rachel lacks in experience, she more than makes up for in enthusiasm.

Puck's never taken much stock in the Don't Kiss And Tell philosophy, but he's come to learn that there are some things that just don't make sense outside of him and her, and whatever it is they have. They do things together that neither would ever, _ever_ discuss with another human being. Rachel does this one bit where she sings some power ballad and she pretends to be using a microphone but _really_ it's his... whatever, just trust him when he says it's _extremely_ fucked up and it never fails to make him laugh until he can hardly breathe.

(When Puck tries to write up the ranking chart next class, he doesn't know what to call _that _exact feeling so he rips the paper out of his notebook, throws it away and takes a nap.)

-------

Even though they never really decide to become exclusive in any official capacity, he still finds himself getting shoehorned into meeting her fathers. And even though he refuses to admit it, a small (_very_ small) part of him is curious. The rest of him is hesitant and scared shitless, but that small part that stops him from just flat-out saying no to this wants to know, plain and simple, _how the fuck do they do it?_ He's never been around them for more than a few minutes at a time and even he can realize they are probably two of the best fathers he knows, and possibly will ever know. Rachel hero-worships both of them and if he can get his own daughter to look at him with even a fraction of that same adoration, it'll be more than he deserves.

So he agrees to meet them. And then lives to regret it pretty much immediately after.

His first dinner with them is an exercise in torture. Eli, the short, balding one with glasses is one of those intellectual types that makes Puck want to put his head in the oven when he starts going on and _on_ about some political situation in a country he never knew existed. Brian is tall, black and used to play college ball. He even tried out for the Browns before blowing out his knee, and Puck likes him well enough but all that means is that when he puts his hand up Rachel's skirt under the dinner table, he feels kind of guilty about it.

He can't even pretend to be Rachel's sweet, innocent, well-intentioned boyfriend because they already know he isn't. He wishes the blame for this could fall solely on Debbie's shoulders, but just last week the dads came home early to find Puck with his pants around his ankles in the study and Rachel on her knees. Puck had pushed her away so quickly that she still complains about a twinge in her neck whenever she turns her head left but not fast enough to stop her fathers from knowing _exactly_ what was going on.

So really, this isn't so much a _Getting To Know Our Daughter's Boyfriend_ dinner as it is a _Who Is This Miscreant Molesting Our Baby Girl And Why Are We Feeding Him?_ kind of thing. They wait for the second course before bringing up his and Rachel's "uh, natural reactions to the overwhelming feelings in their bodies" and Puck tries not to throw up in his mouth.

What really kills him is that he has been in this situation before. When Santana forced him to meet her psychotic parents, he wrote and memorized a speech about how special /lovely/not a total bitch when you really got to know her/beautiful their daughter is, and if they ever decide to consummate their love (HA!) he will make sure it is what she wants and they will always, always be safe. Santana's bullshit meter was working in fine order because she almost choked on her enchilada but her parents fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Obviously, this speech is of no use to him now because, as Mr. and Mr. Berry are well aware, he has a baby on the way. Always safe, my ass.

Except Puck is surely catching some of Finn's stupid because he repeats the speech. Verbatim. _Without prompting_. He may have even used Santana's name at some point.

The men just stare at him silently and Rachel looks like she wants to drown herself in her soup.

How she convinces him to come over for a second dinner, he has _no _idea. It might be because they were both naked at the time and she had been doing something with her teeth that made his eyes roll to the back of his head. Whatever, the point is: he's there. And nobody but Rachel looks all that happy about it.

Puck decides to stick religiously to his plan of nodding at questions, giving one-word answers when necessary and absolutely no touching. (He briefly contemplates smacking Rachel's hand with a spoon when he feels it running up and down his thigh.) Eli asks about the baby, and sounds genuinely curious about her. Puck gives them a brief lowdown on Quinn's latest doctor visit, and then asks for a second helping of mashed potatoes.

He feels the words forming in his mouth, so he chugs his glass of water and swallows them. The night has been bearable so far if not pleasant, so nobody needs to hear him say: _I know you probably hate me because I try to violate your daughter on a regular basis but if you could give me a few pointers on how to raise the kid of my own that's on her way, I'd really appreciate it because I think you did a great job with yours, minus the times when she's a raging psychopath_. He shoves a huge chunk of bread in his mouth for good measure. Rachel is clearly trying to mentally project some manners into him because he sees her going cross-eyed from the effort.

Later, Puck helps Brian load the dishwasher as Rachel and Eli argue in the living room over what movie to watch during dessert.

"You know, I know a little something about what you're going through," Brian says as he turns the knob on the machine. Puck's raised eyebrow earns him a chuckle from the older man.

"Look at Eli." Through the entrance to the kitchen and across the hallway, Puck does look at Eli. He and Rachel are about the same height, which means he could probably use them both as crutches if he wanted to. Their debate has devolved into a weird display of musical one-upmanship, as both seem to think their dilemma will be solved by how well the crucial number from their chosen film is performed. "He's small, smart and a _total_ geek. His parents almost fainted the first time he brought me home for Shabbat dinner."

"Really?"

"I guess no one really wants their child to date some punk football player, even if they've done it too."

"Did they, uh, ever accept you?" Puck shrugs, "Or whatever." Way to play it cool.

Brian has a teasing glint in his eye when he answers. "Eventually. I had to work at it. But I eventually got them to forget that their son was in love with a dumb jock."

Puck knows that this is probably an important turning point in his relationship with Mr. Berry, but he still can't help it when he says "Maybe they just didn't want him to be dating a _dude_."

He considers himself lucky when Brian lets out a hearty laugh instead of punching him straight into the floor like he should have.

* * *

Let me know what you think. Reviews make me happy. Please make happy :)


	2. What Ever Happened?

A/N - I had the best/WORST time writing this chapter. Best, because of all the Puck/Quinn interaction. I don't care, I'm obsessed with the idea of those two being BFF super-parents. And worst, well, there HAS to be a plot, right? Right?!

Un gros merci to my awesome beta Babs! Much love, CRAZY LADY! And to Becca, who gave me a crash course in football so that this chapter could happen.

Thanks for all the reviews so far guys. You are the bestest!

Chapter title stolen shamelessly from The Strokes.

* * *

What Ever Happened?

_I want to be forgotten,  
and I don't want to be reminded.  
You say "please don't make this harder."  
No, I won't yet._

_I want to be beside her.  
She wanna be admired.  
You say "please don't make this harder."  
No, I won't yet..._

-------

It's easy to tell when most people are stoned out of their minds. With Finn, the rules are a little different. The kid _already_ looks half-baked, and that's on a good day. So it takes years of Puck and Finn smoking badly rolled joints behind the 7-11 down the block from school to learn all of the tell-tale signs.

Sitting in the Hudsons' garage, Puck sees the way Finn's gripping the edge of the worktable and he knows that his best friend is good and blitzed. Because when Finn is high, his arms are literally weapons of mass destruction. They've gone through enough vases, windows and Playstations by now that Finn automatically holds on to whatever is most stable when they smoke so he doesn't end up knocking down half of Western Ohio.

Rachel is sitting on a bench, mostly silent but still giving these indignant squeaks every once in a while because "I understand the need to divulge in such transgressions, boys, but I don't want you two to become a statistic." When Puck strikes up a conversation on possible ways to make Nationals go their way, without relying solely on their talent, Rachel goes red in the face. "We're not going to _cheat_."

"Why the fuck not?"

She gets her _I am about to unleash some wisdom on you, Noah Puckerman_ look, which always comes right before she says something completely stupid. "Because! That's unethical!"

Puck lets out a bark of laughter before taking one last toke. Rachel huffs and amps up for her final blow and he's already smirking at whatever it is she'll say. What he doesn't expect is for Finn to say it with her, at the exact same time; like it's one of their duets that they nail the second they perform them.

"Winning by cheating isn't winning."

He opens his mouth to tell them how lucky they are to have him around but he sees the way they're both grinning dorkily at each other and he wonders if maybe they may not need him as much as he likes to think so.

So what he says instead is "Alright Hudson, it's been real. But I know how the little lady gets when she doesn't get her daily dose of The Puckerman Special so we're gonna bounce." He picks Rachel up and hoists her over his shoulder despite her protests and heads for the door.

Rachel calls him a pig, Finn knocks over a toolbox and Puck wonders if the weed is finally making him paranoid.

-------

The next day, Quinn's waiting for him by his truck when he gets to the parking lot after the final bell. She comes over for dinner at his place every Wednesday, ever since his mother found out about the baby. He's not really sure what these dinners accomplish, other than making him want to drink battery acid, but his mother insists on keeping tabs on the baby. And he's nothing if not terrified of her so really, it's out of his hands.

He chucks his backpack into the bed of the truck and turns to face Quinn, taking in her pissed off expression and the way her arms are crossed.

(Ever since her stomach started really showing, she's had to cross her arms a little bit higher than usual, which makes her look less intimidating and more like a genie. But don't tell her that. Trust him.)

"I've been waiting for half an hour," she snipes. He sighs. Tonight is going to be _fun_.

"Well school finished ten minutes ago so..." He opens her door for her and gives her a boost into the cab of the truck. If her mood is anything to go by, it's not the time for the _hilarious_ grunts that he normally whips out when he has to lift her. He walks over to his side and gets in, and starts to drive only when he sees she's put on her seatbelt out of the corner of his eye. "I'll have you know, I won't stand for my daughter being a truant."

"Gee, I _wonder _where you picked _that_ word up," she grumbles. He grins because he can tell she's starting to calm down. "I skipped last period. I told Mr. Schue I wasn't feeling well and he told me to take it easy."

"What's up with you two?" The day after he and Quinn had sat down and decided they wouldn't be giving this baby up, she had been adamant that the first person she got to tell was Mr. Schuester. Puck had no idea why and she offered no information but two days after she left Puck's house to go see their teacher, word spread that Mr. S had ditched the psycho wife. And now he and Quinn have gotten close, like they share some secret. Schuester dotes on her like a daughter, and Quinn eats it up, probably because her own father hasn't spoken to her directly in months.

Puck hopes they aren't fucking or anything. This kid is gonna grow up messed up enough as it is.

"Where's Finn, anyway?" he asks when she ignores his earlier question.

"Detention." She had been fiddling with the knobs on the radio, but now she's abandoned them to stare at him in annoyance. "_Someone_ told him that Coach Tanaka was considering a sex change and wanted everyone to start referring to him as Ma'am." Puck grins. That one had been almost _too _easy.

Even though she isn't biting his head anymore, he can tell something is still on her mind. "What's wrong now?"

She takes a deep breath. "My hormones are all out of whack, Rachel Berry keeps singing to my stomach because she is convinced the baby can hear her, despite what everyone keeps telling me I am getting _fat_, and your mother hates me."

All true.

As Quinn rambles on about her horrid life, Puck thinks back to the first night he brought Quinn home to his mother.

It was awful. And it only got worse when Quinn finally left and his mother asked him point-blank when they would be getting married. Puck had bought himself some time (and sympathy) from his mother by telling her that he _had_ asked her to marry him, she had just said no. But then Quinn eventually got wind of that bullshit and told his mother straight-up that Puck never proposed because he is in love with Rachel Berry (he had jumped in with a very mature and very justified _AM NOT!_ but no one was actually listening to him) and she went on to explain that furthermore, Quinn was dating her son's best friend and had no intention of marrying Puck. Ever. This, believe it or not, did nothing to change his mother's opinion of Quinn.

Quinn likes to bring up Rachel a lot when she comes over, probably because that puts the heat off of her and gets his mother started on The Incident and it's bad enough her son is now going to be a father but she has to learn in front of _everybody_ that he is some sort of sexual deviant and did he even _think_ about what seeing that did to poor little Debbie and now he finally finds a nice Jewish girl but heaven forbid he brings her home to his mother like a good son. He glares at Quinn whenever she throws him under the bus like that, but she just smiles and listens to his mother's Rachel Rant eagerly.

He and Quinn spend this particular dinner swearing up and down to raise the kid Jewish.

And then when Puck drives Quinn home, he spends the ride reassuring her that it was all just for his mother's sake and the baby can get her Catholic on, no problem.

-------

Every Titan gets 3 tickets per game to give to friends and family. In the past, Puck's have gone more often than not to a wide assortment of girls that thanked him in a wide assortment of ways. Sometimes, when Mrs. Hudson could make a game he'd toss a ticket Debbie's way, but other than that, he mostly saw them as Get-Some-Ass-Free cards.

So yeah, they've been piling up in his locker for a while now. He's considered inviting Rachel to a game but from the way her eyes glaze over when he just _talks _about football, he knows she'd only show up to, like, be supportive. Besides, she's never asked.

But he gets an idea one day at her house, while she and Eli force him to watch The Sound of Music (and seriously, _what's with all the Nazi movies?_) and he escapes by claiming he needs to use the can. He heads to the kitchen to raid their freakishly huge fridge when he spots a small wisp of smoke from the patio. Years of living with a pyromaniac means putting fires out is kind of second nature to him, but when he heads out with a pitcher of water all he finds is Brian, smoking a cigar with a cooler of Miller Lite and a small TV set up in front of him showing the Browns game.

They kind of just stare at each other for a while and then Brian nudges an empty patio chair in Puck's direction and turns back to the game. They watch the whole game in silence (except for when Puck tries his luck and reaches for a bottle and Brian doesn't even stop watching the screen to say "Don't even think about it.") and when he kisses Rachel goodnight and Eli shakes his hand goodbye, Brian just pats him on the back and says "Packers on Sunday. We don't stand a chance."

It's a pretty pathetic idea, and he knows this, but he doesn't really get why he just can't let it go.

At school the next day, he stops by Rachel's locker to give her back the notes she's lent him to study for his history test (which he totally used to cheat, by the way, but he knows better than to tell her this) and he hesitates for a while before getting the crumpled envelope from his back pocket.

"Uh, these are for your father. Brian." Rachel looks really confused, but he goes on because he can't take it back now. "Well Eli can come too, obviously. And you." She opens the flap and when she sees the tickets, he knows she's going to give him a happy smile. But he's blindsided by the mini-tackle into the lockers.

When it's finally game night and he walks out onto the field, it doesn't take him long to find them in the crowd, probably because Rachel is screaming his name like a lunatic.

"Noah! Puck!" Rachel and Eli are dressed head to toe in red. Eli's holding a sign that says WE LOVE #20 that he _hopes to God_ Rachel made because the alternative is just too fucking weird to contemplate. They're both bouncing up and down screaming "Go Noah Puckerman! Score a touchdown! Win the game!" and Brian has that _embarrassed but weirdly amused and kind of loving this_ look on his face that Puck is starting to worry is becoming a staple expression of his own. Right next to them is Quinn who, in a desperate last-ditch effort to get his mother to stop actively hating her, asked Finn for two tickets instead of one and is watching the game with Debbie. Both are scarfing down chilli dogs like it's going out of style and Puck doesn't _care_ if one is his little sister and the other is the mother of his child, Finn is driving those two home because he knows this binge-fest is not going to end well and he just got his truck cleaned last week.

While most games consist of them getting reamed for three hours straight, they've somehow managed to find a team that sucks as hard as they do. Neither side has scored a single point yet, and it's only a matter of time before someone tries to burn the stadium to the ground in a riot. The fact that they are evenly matched in craptitude has somehow sparked the most (only) interesting game at McKinley since Kurt's debut. The crowd is on its feet, the Cheerios' routines are actually game-related and Puck even catches a smile on Coach Tanaka's face when he sends them out for the final play of the game. It seems kind of shitty to end it with a field-goal attempt but they might as well play to their strengths and a win's a win. Of course, their team is so fucking ass-backwards that they manage to screw up the simplest play. Finn fumbles the snap, and Kurt panics when he sees the defensive line about to annihilate him so he pivots around a player from the other team and runs off just as Finn finally gets control of the ball and launches a Hail Mary into the melee.

Somehow the ball lands in Kurt's hands.

They may as well have tossed a naked girl into his arms because Kurt just stands there, a panicked _What the fuck am I supposed to do with thing?_ expression on his face and showing no sign of moving toward the end zone that is literally two feet behind him.

Puck starts to sprint toward him, stiff arming two other players in the process, and there is no time to explain laterals, no time to grab the ball out of Kurt's hands and no time to even just tell him to run. The game is on the line and they've come so close to winning so few times and he feels excited on the field in a way that he hasn't in months so he hopes the guys on the team will cut him some slack when he just picks Kurt up with one arm and carries him into the end zone.

The crowd basically goes retarded.

His eyes quickly go to his fan section. Brian is shaking Mr. Hummel's hand and Eli's still waving the sign like a maniac. Debbie is dragging Quinn down near the field by the hand, going up to strangers and saying "Hi! Would you like to meet my niece?" and pointing a giant foam finger at Quinn's stomach. He sweeps his eyes across the stands for Rachel. And then something attacks him from the right side.

"Noah!" she shrieks. "You scored a touchdown!"

"Thanks for the update, Berry," he chuckles, holding her up with his arm for a moment before letting her slide down.

"I must be honest with you, I thought football was stupid. And it is." He lifts one of his eyebrows at her because _where the fuck is she going with this? _"But it's more than that. Well, no it isn't, it's still basically just stupid but I can't lie and say I wasn't _very aroused_ when I watched you on the field." And she's not exactly using her indoor voice, by the way.

"Christ, who taught you how to flirt?" he wonders out loud.

"Oh, no one. I'm self-taught," she explains seriously, as though _obviously_ he was complimenting her awkward as fuck come-on. He rolls his eyes but decides not to waste his breath explaining the joke to her. Instead, he takes his helmet from under his arm and jams it onto her head and smirks as she struggles to overpower him and get it off.

"It smells like your closet in here!"

"Leave it on, it's a good look for you" he declares, but he lets go because he knows his helmet smells like ass and any longer in there, she might pass out. When she rips the helmet off and looks up at him, yeah she's calling him an idiot, but her face is flushed and her eyes are bright and she looks happy.

And he gets that feeling again. The feeling that something is about to click in his brain and he is going to love it and hate it in equal measure but he can only put it off for so long...

...and then some guys from the team dump the entire cooler over his head (even though Kurt is officially in the books as the winner of the game, but _oh my god_ the bitch-fest the little guy unleashed on them the last time they doused him) and even though it's ball-numbingly cold, Puck is pretty damn grateful because you can't really think when you have a brain-freeze of this magnitude.

-------

It's a couple of weeks later when Santana sends out a mass text to everyone that she's going to have a party at her place. A party that he has to miss to watch Debbie and that Rachel misses to celebrate her dads' anniversary.

The events from that night Puck pieces together from the eye witness accounts and eventual tearful confessions.

First, Quinn has one of her infamous hormonal meltdowns. They aren't frequent but they are dangerous. Finn is the one who catches the brunt of them. Puck knows he should feel bad for the guy (Puck himself had to handle one of Quinn's episodes and was ready and willing to jump into oncoming traffic by the end of it) but Finn seems to get a weird kick from being the only person who can calm the chick down with any modicum of success. On this night however, Quinn loses it at Santana's party, so Puck gets about a dozen texts from everyone there and they all tell him about how this time, it's _bad_.

Second, Finn storms off mid-tirade and once again the people from the party help confirm time of departure, and admit that no one could blame him for leaving. Everyone assumes he goes home.

Third, Puck gets off the phone with Rachel. Her fathers have dropped her off at home on their way out of town for the weekend, and he plans on going over tomorrow and staying at her place until they get back. So he says goodnight, and he tells her to think about all the freaky things she wants him to do to her, and he hangs up.

This is all he knows when he goes to bed that night. Everything else he learns when Rachel rings his doorbell the next morning, crying.

He opens the door to find her standing there, her hair all over the place and tear tracks running down her face to a damp spot on her t-shirt. Obviously, this should be his first clue that something is wrong but what really freaks him out is that a) his mother's car is still in the driveway and Rachel had to have seen it and b) she's in sweatpants, looking the opposite of put-together.

"I did something, something horrible and I'm _so sorry_." She's speaking as though he should know what the hell she's talking about but he is completely at a loss. This is Rachel Berry. The amount of stupid shit that can send her into hysterics is vast and unknowable.

He throws an arm around her in comfort. "Berry, get it together. I'll totally help you bury the body." He says it to make her laugh, but she just gets a stricken look in her face. "Oh god, you _killed_ someone, didn't you?"

"Noah..." she whispers, exasperated but still crying. He's starting to feel uncomfortable, because she is obviously expecting him to put this together himself but for the life of him he can't.

She looks down for a good while before in a deep, gasping sob she says "Finn came over last night."

He drops his arm in mock-outrage. "YOU KILLED _FINN_?" He can do this all day, really.

But then he stops laughing when he looks up at her. It's the pitying look on her face that starts the alarm in his head ringing and he gets a feeling of dread in his stomach that takes his breath away.

_Something horrible. I'm sorry. Finn came over last night. Horrible. Sorry. Finn. Finn. Finn. _

Fuck.

And looking back, he definitely should have figured this out earlier but, come on, this is Rachel. It's a weak excuse, he knows, but for now it's the only thing stopping him from feeling like a _complete_ idiot.

Rachel is still sobbing. It's not the pretty, glistening-eye crying she does when they watch a sad movie or the pathetic sniffling from when someone hurts her feelings. Her eyes are red and her nose is leaking and she looks awful. _Good_, he thinks unkindly.

She seems to think his silence is an invitation to explain herself. Her words are all running together and she is rambling, her hands wringing the hem of her sweater violently. "He got into a fight with Quinn and he was upset and it didn't mean anything but we -"

"Don't," he says coldly. He forces his mind wander, to escape this moment and what it means, but all it does is recall another time, years ago, when he was standing in this doorway and someone else was trying to tell him his _I'm sorry_s. "Just don't." He slams the door in her face and, just like the last time, he sits with his back against the door until he hears a car drive away.

-------

He stares at the phone in his hands for at least half an hour. On the one hand, stress is the last thing Quinn needs. On the other, she has a right to know. And if he doesn't talk to someone about this, he knows he will do something stupid and dangerous and permanent. He doesn't even realize that he's pressed the speed-dial to her cell number on his phone until he hears the click of the line being picked up.

"Hello?" she whispers at the other end.

"Quinn..." He struggles with how to start this conversation

_Quinn, something horrible has happened._

_Quinn, they've finally gotten back at us._

_Quinn, it hurts and I don't know what to do. _

Thankfully she saves him from saying something awful. "I know," she says, even though he hasn't said anything so far. "I know, Puck." Her voice is still a whisper and it's making this worse for him, somehow. The Quinn Fabray he knows would be out for blood right now, not home, alone, in shock. Like he is.

"Finn's here," she explains quietly. So she's not alone. "He's sleeping now, cried himself out." There is something tender in her voice as she says this, and Puck has to wonder if Quinn really gets what has happened.

"And you're _letting_ him?"

She goes on as though she hasn't heard him. "He was there waiting on my front porch this morning when my mom went to get the paper. He told me everything. He told me that he and Rachel -"

"Stop!" It's a knee-jerk reaction and he feels bad having yelled at her, but Quinn is blessedly silent so he doesn't care too much. "Stop," he continues quietly. "I don't know the details." The _And I don't want to_ goes unsaid.

She sighs on the line. "He's... he needs me now. You know how he is," she says, and for a moment Puck thinks _I obviously don't_. "This is going to tear him apart. I... I can keep him together. I think." He doesn't need to see her to know she is chewing her bottom lip something fierce right now.

"You're going to stay with him, aren't you?" It's a question, but it comes out more as a statement.

"I kind of deserve this, don't you think?"

"No, you don't. Neither of us does." _Don't we, though?_ But he chases the thought away. "I can't believe you're going to let him get away with this..."

"I love him." She says that like it's so damn simple. And yes, a part of him hates her for it because it is that simple, for her.

"That's the _weakest_ fucking thing I've ever heard, Fabray."

"Is it?" she asks, and Puck hears Finn mumbling something in the background on her end so he snaps his phone closed and goes back to bed.

-------

When he gets to school on Monday, his plan is to just... not do a damn thing. He briefly contemplates buying a slushy but he feels so fucking over that shit, and in his messed up brain even _slushying_ her betrays a level of affection that he doesn't think he owes her right now.

The whole school already knows by second period, even though no one comes up to talk to him about it directly. He briefly spies a blog post about it on Santana's Blackberry when he sits behind her in class. "McKinley Needs To Stop Recycling Storylines: Hudson vs. Puckerman, II" and when he kicks the back of her chair, he's surprised that she has the decency to look sorry and put her phone away.

During their lunchtime Glee practice, even Mr. Schuester has to realize that something is going on because the second they stop singing, everyone in the room is so silent that you can hear a pin drop. Puck doesn't look at Rachel once (except when he forgets not to look at her and those times he's glad to see she looks miserable). Quinn doesn't leave Finn's side for a second that day, although if it's to counteract the rumour (_is it a rumour if it's true, though?_) or to prevent Puck from getting anywhere near him, Puck has no clue.

It's while walking out of fourth period English that he realizes he can do this. He can totally ignore the both of them for the next year and a half, because he has other things to worry about. Important things, like his child and figuring out a way to get her and Quinn to follow him out of this fucking town where nothing good ever happens. It won't be hard to write them out completely. Rachel hasn't been around long enough in his life to actually matter and after years of everyone telling him to be more like Finn, knowing that Puck's rubbed off on him instead seems like a good enough consolation prize to throw a decade of friendship away. Besides, he's gotten at least twenty texts that are all a variation of "I Let me make you feel better" today alone.

He can totally do this.

And then he gets to his locker and voices float out from the nearby girls' bathroom. "Did you hear? Rachel Berry fucked Finn Hudson!"

Which would be bad enough if Rachel and Tina hadn't been walking into the bathroom at that exact moment. Rachel starts sniffling and Tina put her arm around her shoulders and Puck drops a book of his to the ground because _someone_ needs to remember that this is happening to him, too. At the loud bang from the book, the two girls look up and Rachel stops crying but turns around and runs down the hallway, Tina hot on her heels.

He's glad he doesn't have to make any official statement or anything. It's going to end the way it began, naturally and without a fuss. She's basically the smartest person he knows so he gives her the benefit of the doubt when he assumes she knows they're over. Except a part of him feels like it's not real until he says it out loud, but that's the part of him that thought him and Rachel actually had a shot at this so it doesn't really warrant listening to.

When he spots Kurt in the parking lot after school, Kurt just gives him a sad smile and says "I guess I'll be seeing you tomorrow," and when Puck furrows his brow Kurt gives a little shrug and says softly "Tomorrow's Tuesday."

And that's when it starts feeling real.

-------

The absolute worst part is that Puck knows he's going to take her back. People fuck up. He's living proof. He's not going to let her forget this any time soon, but as angry as he is, he knows that shit happens and they just need to man-up and figure their way through this. Besides, she's the one who screwed up, so why should _he_ suffer? Exactly. The second she calls to apologize, he'll make her squirm a little (a lot) in guilt and then take her back.

Except it's been two weeks. And he hasn't heard a word from her.

Well, _fuck_.

* * *

Reviews make my life. Seriously. It's kind of sad.


	3. Vindicated

Chapter Notes: Judging from the reviews I got for the last chapter, I'm gonna start this off by saying I'M SO SORRY. And, it will probably get worse before it gets better, so sorry squared?

And for everyone questioning Rachel's motivations... she's 16 and human. There's not much else to it.

Also, fair warning: This chapter kind of turned into Puck/The entire world. I don't even know.

Chapter title: Sorry to go all high-school emo on you, but I think we can all agree that Dashboard Confessional exists solely for the purposes of teenage boys with cheating girlfriends, so let's let them do their thing this one time, shall we? And yes, I know Puck would probably punch himself in the nuts before listening to this. Whatever.

Mucho thanks to Barbara & Shannon for reading this and then giving me the exact same notes for one part in particular. Seriously.

* * *

**Vindicated**

_I am vindicated  
I am selfish  
I am wrong  
I am right  
I swear I'm right  
I swear I knew it all along_

_And I am flawed  
But I am cleaning up so well  
I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself_

-------

Somehow, it gets worse.

Because even though Puck plans on ignoring Finn and Rachel, it seems as though one of them doesn't get the message. And it's not the one he wants it to be.

"Oh, dear," his mother mutters, peeking out through the curtains of the kitchen window. "He's at it again."

Puck shoves a spoonful of Fruit Loops into his mouth, slurping and chewing loudly. Finn can _set up camp_ on his front lawn for all he cares; he is not going to go out there. And this habit Finn's developed of standing outside their house, waiting for Puck to hear him out, is hardly the weirdest thing he's tried since that shit with Rachel.

The weirdest is, hands down, when Finn resorts to committing a _felony_ to get Puck's attention. He goes to pick Debbie up one day after school and feels a twinge of worry when the horde of little savages eventually scatters and she never shows. And then he spots Finn's beat-up Golf in the parking lot, Debbie sitting happily in the front seat and Finn standing awkwardly to the side of the car.

"Look, man," Finn starts, "I didn't want to have to do this. But if this is what it takes to have you listen to me, then I'm more than willing to fight dirty."

Puck's not exactly sure what the proper reaction is when your little sister is kidnapped, but it's probably not to drive away laughing.

He spends a rare night home alone and tries to pretend that he enjoys it. When the doorbell rings hours later, he finds Debbie standing there, a smear of mustard on her cheek and wearing one of Finn's McKinely sweatshirts. "So you're back, then," he says dully, turning around and walking up to his room.

He gets to the second floor when Debbie slams the door closed. "I want to live with the Hudsons!"

He kicks the dollhouse she'd left laying in the hallway down the stairs. "Well, here's your shit," he bellows. "I'll make sure to call Mrs. H and tell her to get some fire insurance."

Of course instead of sitting there crying like a _normal_ little sister, she runs up to his room and hurls the dollhouse at his head and saves the tears for when their mom gets home.

So jogging to his truck and flipping the bird as Finn starts his "Puck, Puck, can you just _listen _for a second -" spiel is, like, a new morning routine that he gets used to pretty quickly.

It gets _worse_ when he walks into Glee practice one afternoon and everyone's already seated and looking at him anxiously, except for Finn who's standing near the band, sweating like an iced-water pitcher, clutching some sheet music.

No. Fucking. Way.

Before he can make his escape, Quinn dives in front of the door and the band starts playing and Puck has to endure, for the longest two minutes of his life, another _guy_ serenading him with The Cure's Boys Don't Cry. (Which, obviously, Finn cries the whole way through.) Given the way Rachel's eyes keep darting between him and Finn, he knows she is the brains of this operation. Mercifully the song ends and Finn stands there awkwardly before shouting "That was for you! The song I sang. I sang it for you!"

Puck almost, _almost_, grins at the indignant look on Rachel's face because Finn is obviously going off-script and _you don't improvise in a Rachel Berry production_. And then Finn stops shouting and just shrugs his shoulders and says "I sang it because I love you, man."

Kurt falls right off his seat, and Puck takes advantage of the distraction to simply walk out of the room.

-------

It looks like someone ate some fries _hours_ ago and then yakked it all back up onto Quinn's plate. The way she's wolfing it down though, you'd think it was manna from heaven.

"Easy, Moses," he winces, fighting back the nausea.

"What?" she asks, but her mouth is full so it just comes out a slurpy _Wuh?_ "Do you want some?" She holds out a fork-load of the brown congealed mess of fries and cheese and he backs away so fast he smacks his head against the wall.

Quinn shrugs her shoulders and goes back to eating, although that doesn't stop her from giving him a lecture in between bites. "What I want to know is," bite, chew, swallow, moan, "why are you being such an asshole about this?"

He glares at her but those looks stopped working on her about ten minutes after they first met. "See, that's the thing. I'm _not_. This is just the right amount of asshole I'm allowed to be given the situation."

She puts her fork down and even though the cafeteria is full, he can still hear her perfectly clearly when she softly says "Finn wasn't like this when he found out about _us_."

"Well, I'm not _Finn_, am I?" He tries his best not to sound like a fucking idiot when he says it but from the pitying look in her eyes, he knows he's failed.

She jumps up from her chair and grabs his wrist, yanking him up and dragging him out of the cafeteria. "Come on, I need you for something."

He _knew_ this would happen. Thankfully, he has a speech prepared.

"Look, I get it. I'm a hot piece of ass. You..." he waves his hand in the general direction of her stomach, "..._were_ once. It makes sense. But this whole cycle of pain and fucking has got to end somewhere. And I'm sure this is going to hurt to hear, but you're going to have to find another way to get your preggo hormone rocks off." He thinks the pat on her head at the end is a nice touch.

Quinn, apparently, doesn't.

"Oh god, _as if_!" If that isn't enough to kill his ego, the mock retching noises do the trick. "I need you to come with me because I'm finally going to confront Rachel Berry about being a home-wrecker."

"And _why_ do I need to be there, exactly?"

"To stop me from killing her," she answers simply.

"And what makes you think I'll stop you from killing her?"

"Oh please," she snorts. "You won't let me a lay a hand on her." At his disbelieving grunt, she stops walking and turns to face him. "Oh, I'm _sorry_, are we still pretending that you're not completely in love with her?"

There are so many things he wants to say right now, but he's too tired to sort any of it out. He brushes past her, and clenches his jaw. "_Yes._"

She catches up to him and doesn't break her stride when she grasps his hand and says, softly "Understood."

-------

They find her (surprise, surprise) in the music room.

He feels like a giant tool, standing there with his arms crossed and no fucking idea about what's going on. That, and the fact that he can't decide if he wants to hold Rachel or shake her until she begs for his forgiveness is giving him a headache that is pounding right behind his eyes.

Puck has seen his share of catfights. Most of them were over him. He remembers a lot of hair pulling and name-calling (and at least one memorable occasion where he managed to peace-talk his way into a threesome.) What's going on right now, he has no clue. Even though Quinn and Rachel are supposed to be fighting over Finn, they're really just yapping on and on about things that have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ISSUE AT HAND.

They each say "So..." about five million times and their eyebrows keep going up and down and at one point Quinn says "So, the roles were reversed. And you didn't come out shiny and spotless." And then they're _hugging_ and _crying_ and going about this all _wrong _and he's getting kind of turned on so they need to let go of each other. Like, now.

Quinn's the first to step back. She wipes at her face and you'd never know she'd just bawled her eyes out. "Now that that's settled," (Seriously, _WHAT _was settled?) "you two probably need some time alone." She hightails it out of there, but not before giving him a reassuring nod, and squeezing Rachel's shoulder.

Rachel stands there nervously in her tiny skirt, looking like a little girl sent to the principal's office. He remembers with a pang the times they'd actually played that game.

Hands in his pockets, he decides to break the silence. "Hey, Berry. Long time no see."

"Noah..." Whatever she says will do nothing to help his headache so he cuts her off.

"Thanks for arranging Finn's solo for me. If you wanted to kick me in the balls, fucking my best friend was enough. No need to make a great big homo spectacle of it."

She stomps her left foot. "He wanted to _apologize_. What happened was a _mistake_ and he wanted you to know that."

"Oh, did he?"

She looks down at her feet. "He did."

"I practically have to hose Finn off my lawn every morning. I _know_ he's sorry." He stops talking because if he says _Where have you been?_ he'll have to cut his own balls off.

"Was it..." _Good? Better? Worth it?_ "Did you, did you do it to get back at us?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. All I know is that I wish it never happened." _That makes four of us._

"Well, good luck with that." He's about to head out of the room when a hand on his arm stops him.

Rachel looks up at him with her big brown eyes and he can see the struggle for restraint on her face. For the first time in his life, he wishes she would just say what's on her mind. "Noah, I miss you."

"Rachel," he murmurs, putting his hand to her cheek. She rubs her face against the palm of his hand and brings up her hand to entwine her fingers with his. "I hope we can still be friends," he deadpans before dropping his arm and leaving her standing there in shock.

-------

Their season ends with a whimper. When he walks off the field after an unsurprising loss, he sees Brian Berry sitting by himself in the stands, which means he must have bought his own ticket. He catches his eye and Brian gives him a smile and Puck nods his head at him and wonders if Rachel knows her dad is here.

At their final practice two days later, Coach Tanaka gives them his standard "You're all a bunch of dumbasses and I would give my left nut to never see you again if I still had it. And if you don't sign up for basketball, I will find you and kill you" end of season speech.

"That man gives me douchechills," Kurt snots as they walk off the field.

"So... that means no basketball?" Puck asks. "I figured with Basketball Boy in the picture, you'd give it a shot."

"Ugh, my days as a jock are _over_. Besides, I've found other ways to keep him interested." Kurt sways into the dressing room to the hoots and hollers of the team. At Puck's raised eyebrow, Kurt winks. "A lady never kisses and tells, Puckerman."

"Slut," Puck says fondly, ruffling his hair. "Are you going to bring him to the party at Santana's tonight?"

"As much as I'd love to do keg stands in honour of our stellar 2-8 season, I have plans tonight. I'm doing the whole girls' night thing with Rachel."

Oh.

"We've talked about it," Kurt blurts. "Not a lot. She's uncharacteristically quiet about it usually, but sometimes the insanity takes over and she'll talk about it."

Puck stills for a moment and then goes back to emptying his locker out.

"I don't like to meddle," Kurt says, shooting Mike a dirty look when he laughs at what he's said. "But she thinks you hate her. And she thinks she deserves it."

Puck keeps zipping up his bag.

"I asked her what she wants. I told her, in the immortal words of the Gaga, 'Do you want love or you want fame?'"

Puck swings his bag onto his shoulder but he's given up pretending he doesn't care what Kurt has to say. He throws his arms out in a _Well? Get on with it!_ gesture.

"She said all she wants is you."

Puck slams his locker closed. "She has a funny way of showing it, don't you think?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Were we talking about your other sane and emotionally stable girlfriend? Because I thought we were discussing _Rachel_."

Valid point.

"It's almost not fair. You have a girl who despite appearances is probably the _most_ self-conscious, neurotic person on the planet and a boy who'd rather gnaw his own arm off than discuss his feelings. If it wasn't going to end like this, I don't think murder/suicide was that far off."

"So you're saying we basically never had a shot at this."

"I'm saying if it ends, it's going to be because neither of you thinks the other wants it as badly."

Puck's saved from answering by Finn, who walks out of the showers, his wet hair sticking out all over the place.

"How's it hanging?" Finn asks nervously.

"Eh," Puck shrugs. "A little to the left."

An old inside joke of theirs. Something they had heard during their first ever JV practice and only understood when they hit the showers with Bruce "Lefty" Tourainne. Lefty was long gone to Ohio State but Puck and Finn had kept the saying between them, and even though Puck doesn't feel sure about where he stands with his best friend, it feels wrong not to give him that answer.

"Well, why don't we make the reconciliation official with a kiss?" Kurt asks.

Finn blushes a bright red, and Puck just snorts, "In your dreams, Hummel."

"Trust me, you have _no_ idea."

--------

He spends the whole party hitting on Santana like his life depends on it.

Santana spends the party avoiding him like a leper.

Except when he catches her alone in the wine cellar, and he kisses her like he used to and she gives in for, like, a _second_ before she pushes him away.

"I can't. I don't think this is a good idea. And besides, Rachel..."

"When did you two become friends?" It hurts, a little. He and Santana may have never been close but they always understood each other.

"I don't really know," she says, looking genuinely baffled. His eyes follow her as she scopes out her parents' impressive selection of imported wines. Almost a shame it's going to be wasted on kids who won't be able to tell if it came from a box or not. "One day you hate her and you know why. The next, you still hate her but the _why_ is getting kind of hazy. Until one day she's just _there_ and she doesn't seem to be going away and that's... kind of ok."

So, maybe they still kind of get each other.

He reaches out his hand to take one of the bottles she's selected from her arms, and she shoots him a grateful smile. As they walk back up the stairs, she has a look on her face. It's one that he's been getting a lot lately and it says _There's hope for you yet, Noah Puckerman_.

But this whole idea of change is making him itch. So he takes the bottle and Christy Bradley up to the Lopez's master bedroom.

As he closes the door to the room, Christy pulls up her skirt and gets on her hands and knees before he even says a word. _Some things haven't change_d, he thinks, unbuckling his belt.

-------

Despite his opinions on the matter, the Glee club doesn't exactly revolve around him. Despite her efforts, it doesn't revolve around Rachel, either. Just as things start to go back to normal (for the club, because this isn't _really _normal is it?) Glee is rocked by another scandal. At a regular after-school practice, Artie pipes up out of nowhere and says he has a solo he wants to try out. He rolls to the front of the room and faces Tina, and Puck almost gags from the estrogen as all the girls "_awww_" in tandem and melt into their seats.

And then Artie starts singing Usher's Let It Burn, and everyone's jaw drops straight to the floor. Tina runs out crying before the song's even over. Puck is torn between being pretty pissed on Tina's behalf, and just being totally in awe of Artie being one stone-_cold _motherfucker.

Mr. Schuester cuts practice short, and the girls just swarm to the door en masse to find Tina, Original Gleeks and Cheerios alike. Kurt brings up the rear but Puck yanks him back.

(It's a _Tuesday_. Besides, the kid really needs to start hanging out with the guys more. It's good for him)

As the Glee boys noisily drag their seats to where Artie sits, head bowed, Puck realizes that this would never happen at a football practice.

"So, what's all this about?"

Artie looks like he's about to throw-up but he pulls himself together enough to thrust his chin in Mike's direction. Finn, Matt and Kurt go slack-jawed again, and Mike gets his deer-in-the-headlights look (which to be honest, isn't that much different than how looks all the time).

"Artie!" Mike squawks, "I never touched her, I _swear_."

Artie lets out a humourless chuckle and pats his hand on Mike's shoulder. "I know that, Mike. I'm not blaming you."

Mike lets out a breath that he'd been holding since Artie sang to Tina, and when everyone else focuses back on Artie to hear his explanation, he throws a quick look in Puck's direction.

"Ever since you've been helping Tina with her dance moves, I've been waiting for her to wake up and realize she deserves a boyfriend who can at least walk her to class for once, instead of the other way around. Mike, this isn't your fault. I know nothing _happened_."

(Except Artie doesn't know, because something _did_ happen and besides Mike and Tina, Puck is the only person that knows this.)

"I just don't want to slow her down anymore."

Puck's observation that Tina probably gets places way faster with Artie's wheels under her is met with stony silence and a punch in the arm by Finn. He is trying to _help_.

So now the club is always walking on egg-shells around Artie and Tina, and it pisses Puck off because they _used to_ walk on egg-shells around him and Rachel. Now that everyone's so focused on the Artie/Tina drama, they've forgotten to be awkward around him and her and it's almost as if he's the only person who remembers that it happened. The only thing that pisses him off more is the fact that is pisses him off at all.

-------

Sometimes, he tells himself he needs to stop drinking. Usually it's when he wakes up in a bed he doesn't recognize. Or when the last thing he remembers is point A and then suddenly he's fucking Point B and for the life of him he can't recall how he got from one to doing the other (although he concedes that it probably took minimal effort on his part.)

This is not one of those moments. He is sober(ish). Point A was the door to Santana's house for another party and Point B is Tina Cohen-Chang. Alcohol isn't to blame, just plain ol' desperation but sometimes that works better because they're in Santana's little sister's room and he's pretty sure Tina didn't show up to the party topless.

"You've already been with three girls from Glee, what's one more?"

"Um," is all he manages to get out before Tina climbs into his lap and kisses him. It's a testament to how much he actually likes her when he neither deepens the kiss nor pushes her off of him. He just sits there and let's her do this, because he's pretty sure she feels like she has to, and he just hopes that his virtue won't be compromised in the process. _Heh_, he thinks to himself.

The kiss lasts about a minute before it's too wet, the salty kind of wet that he remembers from kissing Rachel after her ferret died.

Tina doesn't get up, but she shoves her face down into her chest and cries so quietly that only the shaking gives her away. He knows it's stupid to wait for her to do something, because if she's embarrassed even just a fraction as intensely as he is, she probably wants to go crawl into a hole and die.

He wishes Rachel were here to tell him what to do.

(He wishes Rachel were here to see him making out with one of her best friends.)

He pats Tina awkwardly on the back, and he knows if he opens his mouth he will say something awful and inconsiderate. But he says it anyway because it's not like he asked her to come to him for comfort and she should know better than to think she would find any with him.

"Now I _know_ I'm not that bad a kisser, so the problem must be you, Cohen."

"It's Cohen-_Chang_," she huffs. He's never going to use her full last name. She's never going to stop correcting him.

"Whatever, _Cohen_. Nice boobs," he smirks.

Tina blushes and smacks him on the head and after she puts her shirt back on, they spend an hour reading little Gabriella Lopez's diary to each other and putting all of her stuffed animals into dirty sexual positions before heading back downstairs.

When he offers her a ride home he makes sure both Mike and Artie see them leave together. He remembers how good it feels to be the one starting shit.

-------

"I think it's deplorable to use emotionally vulnerable girls for sexual gratification."

He closes his locker to find Rachel standing by his side, arms folded in her _out for justice_ pose. He'd rather go to history class than deal with this shit, although he can't say he's surprised when she trails after him, yapping at his heels like that puppy who loves you more the harder you kick it away.

"Remember when I wasn't talking to you because you fucked me over and you weren't talking to me because, well god knows why, but whatever, and it was good? Let's go back to that."

"No. I'm not going to stand idly by and watch you take advantage of Tina." Sometimes the rumour mill at McKinley was nothing if not impressive.

"Hey, maybe Cohen's taking advantage of _my_ emotional vulnerability. I've been meaning to thank you for giving me the broken-hearted card to play, Berry. Works like a charm."

He's all set to walk into class but for reasons he can't even begin to fathom he feels compelled to keep talking. "Look, nothing happened."

She doesn't even bother to hide the eagerness in her voice. "Really?"

"No, not really." Her face falls but once again, something stops him from making his perfectly-timed exit. "But it was nothing major, and I just drove her home. So call off the guard dogs. She's safe from big bad Puck."

Rachel rolls her eyes but puts her hand on his arm. "Tina's lucky to have a friend like you. And if you ever, you know, became more than that, then she'd be even luckier."

It's Rachel who makes the dramatic exit and Puck, as usual, is left standing there feeling like a fucking moron.

-------

Glee practice starts of pretty normal (at some point, awkward drama became their default setting) but during a quick break, Tina asks Artie if she can speak to him outside. The rest of the Gleeks wait around with bated breath until Tina wheels Artie back into the room a few minutes later. They don't say anything but they each have a small smile on their face.

They don't get back together but Puck's the only one who's not surprised. If anybody knows how hard it is to convince people they don't deserve to be miserable, it's him.

* * *

A/N: For everyone wondering about the Wheels/Asian/Other Asian dramarama, it'll be the focus of a short ficlet in the (near) future. Eventually. Fingers crossed.

And Quinn's craving of the moment is actually very, _very_ delicious poutine. A shout-out to Jess who can't have any in China.

Reviews _still_ make my life. It's_ still_ quite sad.


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